Vittoria — Volume 7 eBook

“I should have despised him if he had acted
indifference,” replied Lena.

She would have suspected him—­that was what
her heart meant; the artful show of indifference had
deceived her once. The anger within her drew
its springs much more fully from his refusal to respond
to her affection, when she had in a fit of feminine
weakness abased herself before him on the night of
the Milanese revolt, than from the recollection of
their days together in Meran. She had nothing
of her sister’s unforgivingness. And she
was besides keenly curious to discover the nature of
the charm Vittoria threw on him, and not on him solely.
Vittoria left Wilfrid to better chances than she
supposed. “Continue fighting with your
army,” she said, when they parted. The
deeper shade which traversed his features told her
that, if she pleased, her sway might still be active;
but she had no emotion to spare for sentimental regrets.
She asked herself whether a woman who has cast her
lot in scenes of strife does not lose much of her
womanhood and something of her truth; and while her
imagination remained depressed, her answer was sad.
In that mood she pitied Wilfrid with a reckless sense
of her inability to repay him for the harm she had
done him. The tragedies written in fresh blood
all about her, together with that ever-present image
of the fate of Italy hanging in the balance, drew
her away from personal reflections. She felt
as one in a war-chariot, who has not time to cast more
than a glance on the fallen. At the place where
the ferry is, she was rejoiced by hearing positive
news of the proximity of the Royal army. There
were none to tell her that Charles Albert had here
made his worst move by leaving Vicenza to the operations
of the enemy, that he might become master of a point
worthless when Vicenza fell into the enemy’s
hands. The old Austrian Field-Marshal had eluded
him at Mantua on that very night when Vittoria had
seen his troops in motion. The daring Austrian
flank-march on Vicenza, behind the fortresses of the
Quadrilateral, was the capital stroke of the campaign.
But the presence of a Piedmontese vanguard at Rivoli
flushed the Adige with confidence, and Vittoria went
on her way sharing the people’s delight.
She reached Brescia to hear that Vicenza had fallen.
The city was like a landscape smitten black by the
thunder-cloud. Vittoria found Countess Ammiani
at her husband’s tomb, stiff, colourless, lifeless
as a monument attached to the tomb.